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NASA Landsat 7 image of Baghdad, April 2, 2003. Smoke billowing from Iraqi set fires in an attempt to affect weapon guidance systems.

Rapid dominance is a military doctrine that has as its main principles "overwhelming decisive force," "dominant battlefield awareness," "dominant maneuvers," and "spectacular displays of power" (also known as shock and awe) as a means of destroying an adversary's will to fight and adversely affecting the psychology and the will of the enemy to resist. The doctrine was written by Harlan K. Ullman and James. P. Wade and is a product of the National Defense University of the United States. The military operation named "shock and awe" began the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Debate exists as to whether or not this operation actually was a true rapid dominance campaign or truly elicited shock and awe.

Doctrine of rapid dominance

Rapid dominance is defined by its authors, Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade, as attempting "to affect the will, perception, and understanding of the adversary to fit or respond to our strategic policy ends through imposing a regime of Shock and Awe." Further, Rapid Dominance will

"impose this overwhelming level of Shock and Awe against an adversary on an immediate or sufficiently timely basis to paralyze its will to carry on . . . [to] seize control of the environment and paralyze or so overload an adversary's perceptions and understanding of events that the enemy would be incapable of resistance at the tactical and strategic levels."

Introducing the doctrine in a report to the United States' National Defense University in 1996, Ullman and Wade describe it as an attempt to develop a post-Cold War military doctrine for the United States. Rapid dominance and shock and awe, they write, may become a "revolutionary change" as the United States military is reduced in size and information technology is increasingly integrated into warfare. Subsequent U.S. military authors have written that rapid dominance exploits "superior technology, precision engagement, and information dominance" of the United States.

Ullman and Wade identify four vital characteristics of rapid dominance: "near total or absolute knowledge and understanding of self, adversary, and environment; rapidity and timeliness in application; operational brilliance in execution; and (near) total control and signature management of the entire operational environment."

Shock and awe is most consistently used by Ullman and Wade as the effect which rapid dominance seeks to impose upon an adversary. It is the desired state of helplessness and lack of will. It can be induced, they write, by direct force applied to command and control centers, selective denial of information and dissemination of disinformation, overwhelming combat force, and rapidity of action.

The doctrine of rapid dominance has evolved from the concept of "decisive force." Ullman and Wade enumerate the elements between the two concepts in terms of objective, use of force, force size, scope, speed, causualties, and technique.

Historical applications

According to its original theorists, Shock and Awe renders an adversary unwilling to resist through overwhelming displays of power. Ullman sites the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as an example of "shock and awe.".

Ullman and Wade argue that there have been military applications that fall within some of the concepts of shock and awe. They enumerate nine examples:

• Overwhelming force: The "application of massive or overwhelming force" to "disarm, incapacitate, or render the enemy militarily impotent with as few causualities to ourselves and to noncombatants as possible."
• Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The establishment of shock and awe through "instant, nearly incomprehensible levels of massive destruction directed at influencing society writ large, meaning its leadership and public, rather than targeting directly against military or strategic objectives even with relatively few numbers or systems."
• Massive bombardment: Described as the "precise destructive power largely against military targets and related sectors over time."
• Blitzkrieg: The "intent was to apply precise, surgical amounts of tightly focused force to achieve maximum leverage but with total economies of scale."
• Sun Tzu: The "selective, instant decapitation of military or societal targets to achieve shock and awe."
• Haitian example: The "imposing shock and awe through a show of force and indeed through deception, misinformation, and disinformation."
• The Roman legions: "Achieving shock and awe rests in the ability to deter and overpower an adversary through the adversary’s perception and fear of his vulnerability and our own invincibility."
• Decay and default: "The imposition of societal breakdown over a lengthy period, but without the application of massive destruction."
• Royal Canadian Mounted Police: The selective application of force emphasizing "standoff capabilities as opposed to forces in place" to attain military objectives.

Iraq War

Buildup

Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, officials in the United States armed forces described their plan as employing shock and awe. Television and newpaper coverage "unanimously" described shock and awe as "the unprecedentedly heavy aerial bombardment unleashed on Baghdad."

The original "shock and awe, as planned, was supposed to be a short but ferocious and nonstop bombing campaign simultaneously directed across a broad number of targets – from command-and-control centers in Baghdad to the Baath Party headquarters there to the Republican Guard divisions in the field. More firepower was to be unleashed on Iraq in just the first few days of the operation than in the entire 38-day air campaign of the 1991 Gulf war – with the goal being to stun Saddam's regime into surrendering."[1]

Contradictory pre-war assessments

Prior to its implementation, there was dissent within the Bush Administration as to whether the Shock and Awe plan would work. According to a CBS News report, "One senior official called it a bunch of bull, but confirmed it is the concept on which the war plan is based." CBS Correspondent David Martin noted that during Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan in the prior year, the US forces were "badly surprised by the willingness of al Qaeda to fight to the death. If the Iraqis fight, the U.S. would have to throw in reinforcements and win the old fashioned way by crushing the republican guards, and that would mean more casualties on both sides."

Campaign

Limited bombing began on 19 March 2003 as United States forces unsuccessfully attempted to kill Saddam Hussein. Attacks continued against a small number of targets until 21 March 2003, when at 1700 UTC the main bombing campaign of the Coalition began. Its forces launched approximately 1700 air sorties (504 using cruise missiles). Coalition ground forces had begun a "running start" offensive towards Baghdad on the previous day. Coalition ground forces seized Baghdad on 5 April, and the United States declared victory on 14 April.

The operation "shock and awe" described the initiation of the Iraqi campaign and not the subsequent insurgency.

Contradictory post-war assessments

To what extent the United States fought a campaign of shock and awe is unclear as post-war assessments are contradictory. Within two weeks of the United States' victory declaration, on 27 April, the Washington Post published an interview with Iraqi military personnel detailing demoralization and lack of command. According to the soldiers, Coalition bombing was surprisingly widespread and had a severely demoralizing effect. When United States tanks passed through the Iraqi military's Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard units outside Baghdad to Saddam's presidential palaces, it caused a shock to troops inside Baghdad. Iraqi soldiers said there was no organization intact by the time the United States entered Baghdad, and that resistance crumbled under the presumption that "it wasn't a war, it was suicide."

In contrast, in an October 2003 presentation to the United States House Committee on Armed Services, staff of the United States Army War College did not attribute their performance to rapid dominance. Rather, they cited technological superiority and "Iraqi ineptitude." The speed of the coalition's actions ("rapidity"), they said, did not affect Iraqi morale. Further, they said that Iraqi armed forces ceased resistance only after direct force-on-force combat within cities. According to National Geographic, "Even after several days of bombing the Iraqis showed remarkable resilience. Many continued with their daily lives, working and shopping, as bombs continued to fall around them. According to some analysts the military's attack was perhaps too precise. It did not trigger shock and awe in the Iraqis and, in the end, the city was only captured after close combat on the outskirts of Baghdad."[2]

Criticism of execution

The principal author of Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance, Harlan Ullman was one of the most vocal critics of the shock and awe campaign. Ullman stated, "The current campaign does not appear to correspond to what we envisioned." In addition, "the bombing that lit up the Baghdad night skies the next day, and in the following days, did not match the force, scope and scale of the broad-based shock-and-awe plan, Ullman and U.S. officials say." In a quesiton directed to Ullman, asking if it is "too late for shock and awe now?" Ullman responded "We have not seen it; it is not coming."

Ullman noted that plan called for "an attack into the center of Baghdad, taking it over, followed by successive takeovers expanding from the center of the city." Also the "bombing campaign did not immediately go after Iraqi military forces in the field, particularly the Republican Guard divisions and political levers of power, such as the Baath Party headquarters." Instead Ullman, states that the "shock and awe" implementation was more of a seige.

Apparently, the "Bush administration throttle[d] back on the Iraqi bombing" and the original plan was scrubbed days before its implementation as "political concerns over civilian casualties factored into the decision."

Casualties

According to a US and UK non-governmental organization called "Iraq Body Count," an estimated "25,000 Iraqi civilians, police, and army recruits" have been killed by "US-led forces, guerillas and criminal gangs" in the first two years of the survey. The group estimates that a "third of civilian deaths – over 8,000 people – occurred during the invasion itself, from March 20 to May 1, 2003, when US-led forces carried out their ‘shock and awe’ bombing campaign on Baghdad." The groups states that of the 25,000 total deaths, "37 per cent were killed by US-led forces." "The death toll almost mirrors a UN-funded survey conducted last year, which found some 24,000 conflict-related deaths since the US-led invasion." [3]

These findings were disputed by both the U.S. military and the Iraqi government. Lieutenant-Colonel Steve Boylan, the spokesman for the US military in Baghdad, stated "We do everything we can to avoid civilian casualties in all of our operations." [4] National Geographic stated that "Civilian casualties did occur, but the strikes, for the most part, were surgical."[5]

Popular culture

Following the United States' invasion of Iraq in 2003, the term "shock and awe" has been used for commercial purposes. The United States Patent and Trademark Office received at least 29 applications using "Shock and Awe." The first came from a fireworks company on the day the United States started bombing Baghdad. The video game manufacturers Midway Games and Sony have attempted to use "shock and awe" in titles, but met with criticism. Miscellaneous uses of the term include golf equipment, an insecticide, a horse and a set of bowling balls called Shock & Awe and Total Shock & Awe by the company MoRich. Neil Young's 2006 album "Living With War" features a song titled "Shock and Awe." The album largely represented Young's response to the invasion of Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom).

See also

• Blitzkrieg

External links

• Shock and awe, from SourceWatch

Further reading

• Blakesley, Paul J. "Shock and Awe: A Widely Misunderstood Effect". United States Army Command and General Staff College, 17 June 2004.
• Branigin, William. "A Brief, Bitter War for Iraq's Military Officers". Washington Post, 27 October 2003.
• Peterson, Scott. "US mulls air strategies in Iraq". Christian Science Monitor, 30 January 2003.
• Ullman, Harlan K. and Wade, James P. Shock And Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance. National Defense University, 1996. PDF available here (4.4MBs).
• Ullman, Harlan K. and Wade, James P. Rapid Dominance: A Force for All Seasons. Royal United Services Institute in Defense Studies, 1998.

[[Category:Military doctrines]] [[Category:Modern warfare]] [[Category:2003 Iraq conflict]] [[Category:English phrases]] [[de:Shock and awe]]